Now that you have finally set aside your warped Big Brother & the Holding Company LPs and your dried-up Iron Butterfly eight-track for new, remastered CD versions, the recording industry is giving you the opportunity to replace your music collection all over again, thanks to the introduction of two new digital audio formats.
The systems, SACD (Super Audio Compact Disc) and DVD-Audio, are based, of course, on incompatible technologies. While they both use discs that look like CDs, that is where the similarity ends. Both formats record music at a much higher quality than ordinary CDs, which audiophiles have long lambasted as having a cold, clinical sound.
The more important difference is that these new formats offer six-channel surround sound, but with much greater fidelity than the current crop of video DVD players. The multichannel mix gives the listener a sense of being in a recording studio.
Can a listener hear the difference? Definitely. During a recent evaluation of the technology, both classical music and contemporary jazz vocals played in the DVD-Audio surround-sound format created a markedly different listening experience compared with regular two-channel stereo. The six speakers enveloped the listener, turning the room into one large sound source. It was as if the music had taken on an added spatial dimension.
"The whole musical experience changes with surround sound," said Leo Rossi, president of business development for the 5.1 Entertainment Group in West Los Angeles, a company that produces DVD-Audio discs. "With six-channel surround sound, you can hear the air and feel the presence of the room. Every type of recording benefits from a multichannel soundtrack."
To achieve the higher quality of DVD-Audio, the audio waveform is sampled 96,000 times per second (when recording in six-channel mode), compared with 44,100 times for a CD. In DVD-Audio, that information is encoded in 24-bit binary numbers, compared with 16-bit numbers for CDs, so much more complexity of sound is captured. SACD uses a different technology, called Direct Stream Digital. Here, the music is sampled 2,822,400 times per second. Having all those data points, proponents say, means that SACD more accurately reflects the original analog waveform.
To play these new discs at their highest fidelity, you will need a new player. SACDs also contain standard two-channel recordings for lower-fidelity playback on regular CD players. Several mass-market models that play regular video DVDs, as well as either SACD or DVD-Audio, will be available this year. Panasonic will introduce a US$299 unit this summer that combines DVD-Audio and video DVD with progressive scan, a formerly expensive technology that improves picture quality when connected to a digital television.
Even if the price tempts you, you may still not have the right ancillary gear to do the job. DVD-Audio and SACD decks must be hooked up to receivers that have six distinct analog inputs, rather than the one digital jack that video DVD players use. While a number of low-priced models will soon hit the market, a recent trip to a Costco store showed not one receiver for sale that was compatible with DVD-Audio or SACD.
This is certainly an electronics industry format war, but one with a twist: Pioneer and Apex Digital have already announced plans to market a video DVD player that can also handle both DVD-Audio and SACD, and it is likely that others will eventually follow suit. If one of these formats disappears, consumers will probably not suffer. (Meanwhile, Sony, Philips, Panasonic and others will offer units that play both DVD-Audio and video DVD, or SACD and video DVD).
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